


right hand yellow left foot red

by Anonymous



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Kindergarten & Pre-school, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Kid Fic, M/M, Single Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 21:42:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10671360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Mingyu is a great kindergarten teacher. No, really! Even if he drops cutlery and crayons daily, he’s never dropped a child. If only he could prove that to Seungkwan.(Just another cliché kid fic)





	right hand yellow left foot red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [naegahosh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/naegahosh/gifts).



Mingyu is a great kindergarten teacher. No, really!

Even if he drops cutlery and crayons daily, he’s never dropped a child.

Okay, that might be a bit of a low bar. But kids are his forte. Mingyu can be fun and entertain them without losing energy, but become serious when needed. His ability to communicate with them prevents any major misunderstandings and helps to get them to trust him, even if he is, as they call him, an old adult. Kids love him because he loves kids, who are full of good and are funny and clever. That’s why he chose to become a teacher after all.

He’s tall, but the kids in his kindergarten class at Pledis Elementary School are never scared of his height because he always makes sure to remember to squat down to eye level when talking to them. Plus, they like it when he picks them up so they can sit on his back and feel like they’re tall too. Mingyu tries to give them all a fair turn on his shoulders – only when it’s safe – keeping track of who’s gone recently so he doesn’t end up airplane-ing the same kid day after day.

If you were keeping track though, you’d find that he sneaks Boo Haebyeol approximately one point five piggyback rides for every one that the others get. He just can’t help it, Mingyu’s biased. She’s his favorite kindergartener.

Haebyeol is the tiniest five-year-old he’s ever seen and she’s never fussy about being left behind, even though her little legs mean she’s always last to run over to him when they break for playtime. It’s not that she gets bullied, but kids are kids. They run around playing their own games, and she’s so small that she often gets overlooked. But she never complains, and smiles like the sun no matter what happens. Mingyu adores her. She reminds him of his younger sister when she was that age.

Today, unfortunately, is not a Haebyeol day. Today, Mingyu has Haneul sitting on his shoulders, Haneul’s little hands gripping his hair while Mingyu reads out a story for the class, and Haebyeol is sitting somewhere in the back of the circle with two boys half a head taller than her on either side, eyes sparkling with delight when Mingyu describes the sparrow getting its broken leg fixed.

“You have got to be kidding me! How could you have one of the children sitting on you like that? It’s not safe!”

“Daddy!” Haebyeol shoots up and runs towards the door, disappearing behind the desks and chairs.

Life, Mingyu supposes, had a way of balancing good with bad. If Haebyeol was Mingyu’s favorite kindergartener, her dad was…

“Hi honey, you look happy today,” the man at the door says, scooping Haebyeol up into a hug and holding her up against his hip.

“Don’t worry, Haebyeol appa, they’re perfectly fine. I keep a hand on them and no one’s fallen yet, right class?” Mingyu asks the other kids with a smile.

“Yes!”

“No one? Haebyeollie, does that mean you’ve been sitting on your teacher’s shoulders before too? I’m definitely going to have to repor—”

Haebyeol, in her high-pitched voice, interrupts with a, “Yeah! I love it!”

“You—” Her father puts her down again and takes her hand in his. “Unbelievable,” he mutters, shooting Mingyu the stink eye. “Well, I’m glad you’re happy, sweetie. Let’s go.”

“Get home safe!” Mingyu says, hoping for cheery. “Class, let’s all say bye to Haebyeol, okay?”

“Bye~!”

 

 

 

 

Boo-ssi is not Haebyeol’s biological father.

Mingyu would never ever suggest that he wasn’t her real father, not to anyone, because he was. He was her dad. But he hadn’t helped birth her.

Haebyeol was Boo-ssi’s sister’s child, and Mingyu hadn’t exactly pressed for details, nor been privy to them, but Boo-ssi had adopted Haebyeol from his sister and gotten her surname changed to match.

The thing is, Mingyu can’t fault the man for his skepticism at Mingyu’s ability to take care of kids.

Every time Haebyeol’s dad comes to pick her up from the classroom, something always goes wrong. The first time, it had been Mingyu banging his head against a table because he had been surprised by the visitor. The next time, he’d crashed into their classroom easel and given himself a huge bruise on the knee. There was the time he’d dropped an entire crate of eggs that were meant for a science demonstration to encourage taking care of the environment against things like acid rain. The list went on and on. Today, it had been Mingyu carrying one of his kindergarteners on his shoulders, maybe a little higher than he should have.

To make things worse, Boo-ssi came to pick up Haebyeol every. single. day. Always exactly when class was supposed to end and never waiting for Mingyu to dismiss the class as a whole. Him not being her biological father made him even more protective of her, and he insisted on picking his daughter up personally, never sending anyone else in his stead.

So, for the past eight and a half _months_ , Haebyeol’s father has seen Mingyu do possibly hundreds of ridiculous things to make him doubt Mingyu’s competence as a teacher.

At first, the response was generally tight-lipped half-smile half-grimaces, but over time, there have been some scathing comments about how little the man trusted Mingyu to work with kids. And now, Mingyu’s pretty sure Boo-ssi hates him.

“How was class?” asks Minghao, the school phys ed teacher whose desk was across from Mingyu’s in the faculty office.

Mingyu groans, dropping his head uncomfortably to the top of his table, bending over at the waist.

Minghao takes the opportunity to hit the back of Mingyu’s head with one of his numerous clipboards. “Again? I thought you said you were getting better.”

“I didn’t drop anything this time!” Mingyu wails, suddenly sitting up and knocking Minghao’s clipboard out of his hand. “I spoke normally, I didn’t trip, I didn’t sneeze, or anything!”

“Then?”

“Okay, so, I had one of the kids sitting on my shoulders—but that’s not even unsafe! I do that with all the kids! I’m good at balancing them! But he said he was going to report me. _Report_ me, Minghao, this is it. My career is over!”

“To think, all because you get clumsy in front of people you like. How does it feel to have the man you swoon over as the cause of your suspension?”

Mingyu wails again. “I’m going to get fired! Will you buy me food when I’m unemployed?”

“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic. I was just joking, okay? He’s not going to get you suspended or fired. Why don’t you just try to explain things at the parent-teacher interviews on Thursday?”

“I’m sure that’ll go great.” Mingyu rolls his eyes. “Hello Haebyeol appa, I keep falling flat on my face in front of you because I think your face and butt are the eighth and ninth wonders of the world, respectively, so please don’t withdraw your daughter from this school because I adore her and also I might adore you.”

“Sounds like a perfect confession to me,” Minghao says with a shrug, like the absolute sadist he is.

“Uhuh. ’Cause that’s suuuuper professional. If he didn’t want to get me fired already, that’ll just be the nails in the coffin.” Mingyu hammers his hand against the desk with an air of finality.

 

 

 

 

Yes, Kim Mingyu was interested in one of his student’s parents. According to Jisoo, the English teacher that’s been at the school for ages (well, longer than Mingyu has), that’s not exactly unheard of.

“In fact, after the student moves onto the next grade, parent and teacher have gone on some dates.”

That kind of news should be promising, but instead it only makes Mingyu more remorseful, because Haebyeol’s dad hates him and there will be no dates on Mingyu’s calendar after she advances to first grade. It pains him to admit this, but Mingyu is an adult harbouring an unrequited crush on someone he sees every day, and that makes him feel as young as the kindergarteners, who swap dandelion rings with wedding vows, young and impassioned and filled with naivety.

The math activity for today is about learning shapes. After asking everyone to name some shapes and drawing them together on the classroom easel, everyone disperses to color in worksheets with different shapes – green for triangles, yellow for squares, and red for circles.

“When you’re done, come show me so I can give you a sticker!” Mingyu calls out, before kneeling by the nearest table, starting on his rounds of making himself available to anyone who needs help.

“Oh, Haebyeollie, are you already finished?” Mingyu asks. He gets to her table close to the end, and she’s doodling something on the back of her paper, but strangely hasn’t approached him to sign off that she’s finished.

“No!” she exclaims, voice shriller than usual.

“Then let’s do our work before drawing, okay? You can draw during free time later,” Mingyu says, hiding his surprise at her vigor.

“No, I can’t! I can’t finish!”

Mingyu lowered himself to a cross legged position, trying to make himself her height. “Why not?”

“Because I did it wrong!” Haebyeol covers her face with her hands, and the others sitting at her table to a bad job of pretending not to stare.

“Really? Let’s take a look, is that okay?” Mingyu only eases the paper away from her after she doesn’t refuse, and flips it over. In one of the circles, supposed to be red, is a thick yellow line from a pencil crayon. “Haebyeol, can you look at saem?”

She turns to him, peeking out from behind her fingers.

“We can fix it! What color is the circle supposed to be?”

Haebyeol wails, “Red! But I colored it yellow! It’s all bad now!”

Mingyu picks up a red pencil crayon and colors over the yellow line. It’s a bit more orangey there than where the red fills in empty white paper, but it’s hardly noticeable. “Look! It’s red now. Want to finish it for me?”

Haebyeol puts her hands down and blinks at the sheet of paper on the table. After a few moments of staring, during which Mingyu quickly turns his attention to Namsoon and Sungmi, waiting patiently for their blue star stickers, Haebyeol picks up the red pencil crayon and colors in the circle.

“Saem, it’s red now,” she says quietly, once Mingyu’s attention is back on her.

“Perfect. Haebyeol, it’s okay to make mistakes sometimes. If we make a mistake and notice, we can fix it, just like we did! Or if we can’t fix it, then we can start over again. But don’t give up and stop working, okay? We still have to finish our work.”

“Okay…” Haebyeol says, and then curls into Mingyu’s side, pressing her face into his shoulder.

He gives her a one-armed squeeze and then moves onto the next student.

Honestly, the class is going great until Haebyeol’s dad shows up and Mingyu stabs himself in the arm with a green pencil crayon.

 

 

 

 

On Wednesday, after doing some reading and writing practice on basic body parts, the class breaks off into small groups to play “Doctor” labelling knees and elbows on a worksheet and pointing at their own arms and legs. It’s loud and rowdy enough in the classroom that Mingyu doesn’t notice Haebyeol’s father hadn’t picked her up at exactly two o’clock until it’s ten minutes past the hour and she’s waving goodbye to her friends.

“Haebyeol? Still waiting for your dad?”

She shakes her head. “My grandma’s coming today! She’s late though…”

“That’s okay,” Mingyu says with a smile, pulling out two chairs at a table. “Why don’t you show me what you learned today while we wait?”

“Okay!” Haebyeol says excitedly, running over to sit and write out the words she learned in her shaky penmanship.

“Are you sure that’s ‘foot’?” Mingyu asks innocently. “Are you sure _that_ ’s not foot?” He points to the figure’s face.

“No, Saem!” Haebyeol says, laughing at him for having such silly notions. “That’s the ‘eye’, of course.”

“Okay, if you’re sure,” Mingyu says, amused, and watches her finishing up with a smile.

When she’s done, she looks around by turning her whole body. “Grandma’s still not here.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll wait with you,” Mingyu promises solemnly. “It must be a special since your dad isn’t coming, right? Usually your dad picks you up.”

Haebyeol shook her head. “Last year, grandma _always_ picked me up. Daddy only came on the first day or my birthday or before children’s day. But this year he changed his mind.”

Probably because he saw Mingyu being a complete klutz and worried that it’d be, as he feared, a usual occurrence. Mingyu signs internally, hoping not to show Haebyeol his feelings of resignation. His circle wasn’t just colored a bit yellow. It was a blob of orange and purple and blue, colors that shouldn’t have even been on the page, and the more he tried to fix it, the messier things got. Mingyu’s mistake was the kind where you had to start over completely, not that he’d have the chance.

“Saem, you don’t think granny’s lost, do you?” Haebyeol’s voice startles Mingyu out of his reverie.

“Definitely not!” comes a voice from the doorway, and both Haebyeol and Mingyu look up to see an elderly woman holding a beaded handbag, holding out her arms.

“Granny!” Haebyeol yelps, and then leaps off her seat to run at her grandmother for a hug.

“Sorry I’m late,” Haebyeol’s grandma says, first to Haebyeol, whom she offers a gentle pat on the head, and then to Mingyu, straightening up from his bow.

“It’s no problem,” he says quickly. “Haebyeol and I had fun, didn’t we?”

“Yep!” Haebyeol giggles. “Saem’s class is always fun.”

“She adores you,” Haebyeol’s grandma adds, “It’s always Kim-saem this, Kim-saem that in the house.” She laughs.

Mingyu hadn’t expected that, considering a grandchild was always the apple of a grandparent’s eye. He’d expected some kind of resistance, maybe because of Boo-ssi’s (valid) complaints. But maybe because Haebyeol is her grandmother’s joy, halmeoni seems to care more about Haebyeol’s opinion than her son’s.

“Byeollie, isn’t your teacher handsome? No wonder your dad always wants to come pick you up himself,” Haebyeol’s grandma continues, still laughing to herself.

Mingyu gapes while Haebyeol nods without understanding, and stares at them while they leave.

 

 

 

 

“Minghao,” Mingyu says breathlessly when he makes it to the staff room, “you’ll never believe what happened.”

“Mingyu,” Minghao says in a sombre tone, “after seeing you accidentally push your own dog down the stairs and then break your leg tumbling after it, nothing in your life will surprise me anymore.”

After Mingyu relays the confusing message from Haebyeol’s grandmother, Minghao puts a hand on his shoulder and stares into his eyes. “Mingyu, I don’t worry about people in general, and I don’t worry about you because who cares about you, but at this point, _I’m worried_.”

“What?” Mingyu asks indignantly.

“You’re reading too much into it. You need to relax, not obsess so much about this guy. Why don’t you come out for dinner with Hansol and Channie and I this weekend? It’s a whole reunion thing, a bunch of people from college will be there, and maybe if you go out you’ll meet someone so you can get over this infatuation.”

When Mingyu looks like he’s about to refuse, Minghao narrows his eyes.

“There’ll be drinks. And meat. So much grilled meat.”

Unfortunately, the guy really knew the key to Mingyu’s heart.

 

 

 

 

“Okay Kim Mingyu, you can do this. You’ve got this. It’s not like it’s your first parent teacher interview or anything. Deep breaths. Deeeeep breaths.”

The pep talk is not going well. The next timeslot is for Haebyeol’s parents and, well, that means Boo-ssi and all of Mingyu’s misdeeds coming together. He’s ready to be yelled at. Kindergarten teachers don’t normally get the brunt of parental anger because they aren’t thinking about university admissions just yet, but in this one case, Mingyu’s got a sinking suspicion he’ll be in hot water anyway.

There’s nothing for it. He’ll just have to bite the bullet.

“Thank you for coming, Haebyeol appa!” Mingyu says, bending forward in a bow that nearly smashes their heads together.

“Oh my!” Boo-ssi stumbles backward to avoid the hit, leaving Mingyu to stutter out apology after apology before they’ve even begun.

“Shall we enter?” Boo-ssi says, a forced but polite smile on his handsome face.

Mingyu’s not a shallow person. He doesn’t like Boo-ssi just because of his luscious auburn locks or high cheekbones or pointy jawline. He’s charmed by Boo-ssi’s obvious intelligence, and if all the jabs weren’t targeted at Mingyu, he’s sure he’d be laughing at the quips he made under his breath while picking up his daughter. And, to top it all off, Boo-ssi loves Haebyeol in a way that Mingyu can just tell makes him a good person. People with that much love and devotion, who were that good to their kids, they were good people.

But that doesn’t Mingyu isn’t also appreciative of the way Boo-ssi looks right now in dark dress pants, leather shoes, and crisp white button up. A grey jacket sits folded neatly over Boo-ssi’s arm, and all of it screams professional, handsome, and—

“—Kim-seonsaengnim? Can we begin?”

“O-oh, right! Please come in,” Mingyu says, struggling to find his balance and walk them to the table and chairs set up for these discussions. “So…um, as you know, this meeting is to discuss whether your child will be advancing to first grade next year.”

Boo-ssi nods, and Mingyu tries to stare at the wall behind him so he doesn’t fumble his words again from being distracted by that face. He’s prepared this speech, written down all he wants to say about Haebyeol, and now he just needs to say it.

“Haebyeol’s a great student. She’s doing very well in class, and I’m very happy with how she’s progressing in reading and writing Hangeul. Her addition and subtraction exercises rarely have mistakes. If she wants, she could practice English more at home—”

“ _She practices English with me. Her English is very good_ ,” Boo-ssi interrupts, in English, and Mingyu nearly falls out of his chair.

“It is! I didn’t mean to say it wasn’t!” His head races to remember what else he was saying. “I mean, some of the other parents want their kids to be ahead of the curriculum, so I’m just offering ways she could…” He can’t quite figure out how to finish that sentence without offending Haebyeol’s father again so Mingyu breaks off and takes a deep breath, readying to finish his spiel. “She’s a lovely girl, she gets along with the other students, she’s very good at following instructions, and if I could I’d keep her back a year so I could have her in my class again.”

“Are you saying—”

“—Oh no! That came out wrong. I don’t mean that I’m going to keep her back or that I’m trying to get her to fail or anything like that. She’s definitely passing. I just mean that I like teaching her so much that I wish I could do it again.” Stupid. Stupid Mingyu, always with his foot in his mouth, never saying the right thing.

“I see,” says Haebyeol’s father. He leans back in his chair, legs crossed and hands resting on his knee, every bit the picture of sophisticated elegance.

“Well, that’s all from me,” Mingyu says awkwardly. He fights down the urge to rub at the back of his neck. “Do you have any questions?”

Boo-ssi smiles perfectly, teeth all white, and face depicting no happiness with Mingyu whatsoever. “I think we’re fine,” he says, clearly not meaning it.

Mingyu sighs. “Haebyeol appa, I don’t think I’ve been able to show you the best side of me.”

“Oh?” Boo-ssi tilts his head, blinking serenely.

“Um,” Mingyu swallows, wondering if he’s shot himself in the foot. “I promise I’ll work hard to be the best kindergarten teacher to Haebyeol and her classmates.”

Boo-ssi gets to his feet, and Mingyu quickly rises as well. “She seems…fond of you,” he forces out, before bowing and taking his leave.

 

 

 

 

By Saturday, Mingyu is strangely glad that Minghao had invited him to dinner. He feels like he needs this, and, as Minghao had put it, he probably should interact with adults who use complex sentence structures once in a while.

Most of his closet these days is argyle sweaters and stuff that’s easy to wash paint out of, but he manages to find a thin cardigan that doesn’t scream ‘teacher’ and a pair of dark wash jeans. He arrives at the BBQ restaurant what he thinks is a fashionable five minutes late, but it’s still 10 minutes too early because only two people from their party are there and neither of them are Minghao.

“Hyung!” Hansol waves, pulling a chair back for Mingyu. “It’s been a while. This is—”

Boo-ssi. It’s Boo-ssi. Haebyeol’s dad is at Mingyu’s friends’ dinner.

“—Seungkwan, he’s my age but he was in your year at school, business major, now he has his own company and everything. Seungkwan, this is Kim Mingyu, he’s a kindergarten teacher. Have you met?”

“Um,” Mingyu says eloquently.

“Maybe seen each other around, here and there,” Seungkwan says breezily, looking at Mingyu and then looking away casually.

“Well, what are you doing? Sit down,” Hansol says, laughing.

Mingyu does not want to sit down. He wants to bolt out the door right now but a hand shoves him into his chair, and when he turns, Minghao is beside him, saying his greetings to the others with a smile on his face. It’s a smile of pure evil. The others don’t know that, but Mingyu does, Mingyu’s onto that little devil.

“You knew,” Mingyu whispers angrily into Minghao’s ear when the other two start talking about something else, after they’ve done the requisite catching up. “You totally knew, you…buttface!” He’s a kindergarten teacher, he struggles with the no swearing thing.

Minghao doesn’t even pretend not to know what Mingyu’s talking about. He just looks at him and says, “duh,” with this impatient expression, and Mingyu’s not even given any time to sulk because Minghao pours soju into their glasses, clinks them together, and forces a shot.

“No fair, you’ve started the drinking without us!” Junhui says, sliding into a chair across from Minghao, and then luckily Minghao’s evil gets turned away from Mingyu while the two squabble about something uselessly.

They’re joined by Seokmin and Chan, and also Chan’s boyfriend, some guy Mingyu’s seen maybe once or twice before named Wonwoo, and once they’re all there, they can finally start grilling in earnest.

Mingyu, of course, does all the cooking.

Seungkwan says, “Please don’t burn anything,” politely, and Hansol laughs like it’s some funny joke, but Mingyu flushes red and focuses on flipping the meat with his tongs, feeling like his own fingers were burned despite not touching the grill.

They cook (Mingyu cooks), they eat, they drink, and they play musical chairs a bit so that they can all catch up with each other on how things have been in the month or two that they haven’t seen each other. Mingyu doesn’t move because he’s glued to the grill, but Minghao flits around since he and Mingyu see each other every day and don’t need to talk more than they already do. Somehow, they manage it so that Mingyu and Seungkwan are never beside each other, which is probably the best course of action for Mingyu not to accidentally hurt himself somehow.

He still catches snippets of conversation though, like, “That must be tough to juggle while trying to manage a company at the same time,” from Wonwoo, the only other person at the table who didn’t know Seungkwan well.

“Seungkwan’s a great dad though, you should see him with Haebyeol. She’s a super kid, but it’s because Seungkwan’s such a great parent,” Hansol says, leaning back in his chair with a beer held loosely in his right hand.

“Stop it,” Seungkwan says, slapping at Hansol’s free hand. “I just have to remember what my priorities are, and my number one priority is always her.”

“You manage it alone though? It’d be easier if she had a mom, wouldn’t it, to share the childrearing burden.”

Seungkwan tilts his head. “It would be hard to find someone I’d trust with my daughter. They’d have to love her, and she’d have to love them for me to even consider it, and with my schedule, it’s not like I have time to go looking for someone like that.”

He can feel Minghao looking at him. Mingyu wishes he could dissolve into the floor and disappear into thin air, but unfortunately, he’s human and has to excuse himself to go to the bathroom, where he stares at his reflection in the mirror and wishes his face would stop burning. He could blame the alcohol to anyone else, but he knows that the reason why he’s so flushed right now is really because of Boo Seungkwan. It’s not fair. Not when Haebyeol’s the perfect child and has the perfect father and Mingyu is completely, utterly, childishly head over heels for him.

When Mingyu approaches their table again, Minghao and Seungkwan have their heads close together, and they’re talking in voices that are a bit louder than usual, courtesy of the alcohol.

“He’s the walking picture of what they say about hot people, you know, when you’re beautiful you’re useless because you can rely on your looks to get you further in life. It’s not fair that he looks so good, but I guess that’s why he makes such a bad teacher.”

Minghao scoffs. “Mingyu is _not_ good-looking.”

“Uh, are you blind? He’s hot. He’s over six feet of model looks.”

“That’s…I’m going to disagree with you on both accounts. He’s not hot, also he’s not a bad teacher. I know it’s weird, but he’s like oddly good at some things. Cooking is one of them, and working with kids is another. I swear he works miracles when anyone’s having a temper tantrum.”

“That man is a menace to himself! If he can’t prevent himself from getting hurt, how could he possibly prevent the kids from getting hurt? Last week I saw him almost take out his own eye with a paintbrush.”

“He’s not normally like that.” Minghao sighs.

“Trust me, I’ve seen him practically every day for the past school year. There’s no explanation for why he’s such a disaster except that he’s clumsy.”

“Or,” Mingyu interrupts loudly, “I’m just distracted when you’re around because I like you!”

Seven pairs of eyes turn to Mingyu at his loud declaration, and Mingyu shoves his hands over his mouth with a horrified expression. Before anyone else can say anything, he turns around and flees.

 

 

 

 

Mingyu very seriously considers spiking his Monday morning coffee with something a bit stronger, but alcohol has already been the instigator of enough bad decisions this weekend. It’s just, he’s having a hard time thinking of how he’s going to face pick-up time. Maybe Seungkwan won’t come. Maybe he’ll send Haebyeol’s grandmother and they can avoid each other for the rest of the school year.

As luck would have it, Seungkwan not only comes to pick up his daughter afternoon, but he waits until Mingyu’s done sending off all the other children and dallying with cleaning up the chalkboard so they can do the adult thing and _talk_. Sometimes, Mingyu really wishes he were a kindergartener himself.

He’s holding Haebyeol’s hand, so Mingyu doesn’t know what Seungkwan wants to say to him but he smiles at them both, toothy so Haebyeol doesn’t suspect anything’s wrong.

“Did you mean what you said?” Seungkwan asks with a focused gaze and serious expression.

“I didn’t say it because I was, um, inebriated if that’s what you mean,” Mingyu says quietly, thinking that would probably not be in Haebyeol’s vocabulary.

Seungkwan does a half nod where he sticks his chin out and bobs his head a bit, and Mingyu wants to cup his hands around that perfect jaw. “In that case, I think I’ll make a meeting with you for tomorrow after school. I’ll have Haebyeol’s grandmother pick her up so we can talk, if that’s okay with you.”

“Am I in trouble?” Haebyeol asks quietly, sticking to Seungkwan’s legs with a small frown on her face.

“No!” both Seungkan and Mingyu say at the same time.

Mingyu bends down so that they’re at eye level and takes Haebyeol’s hands in his. “Definitely not, Haebyeollie. Your dad wants to talk to me because _I_ ’m in trouble, not you.”

Haebyeol giggles and shyly takes her hand away. “Saem! How could you be in trouble?”

Mingyu winks at her before standing up again. In a more serious voice he says calmly, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Haebyeol appa.” It might be the first day he hasn’t done something totally silly in front of him.

 

 

 

 

“You can come in, Haebyeol appa.”

“Seungkwan. You know my name is Seungkwan, you should call me that, I mean, since no one else is here.” He shoves his hands in his pockets.

Mingyu nods. He’s not sure what to say. On one hand, Seungkwan had told Minghao he thought Mingyu was hot. On the other, he lamented about Mingyu’s inability to take care of children. Also, Mingyu had one hundred percent confessed to Seungkwan in front of a restaurant full of other people before running away. His head has been a jumbled mess.

“You should have used the eighth and ninth wonders of the world line,” Seungkwan blurts, eyes looking sideways and away from where Mingyu’s gaping at him.

“What?”

“Minghao…told me what you said. I thought that was really funny.” Seungkwan’s gaze shifts from the side wall to his feet, covered again by expensive looking leather brogues.

“Oh…”

“You know! I didn’t always pick up Haebyeol before. But when I saw you the first day, I thought you were just my imagination, so I came back to check that her kindergarten teacher was really this freakishly tall Adonis and you were real, and then I couldn’t stop and you kept tripping over things and I strangely found that endearing and oh my god please stop me from talking this is getting so embarrassing!”

Mingyu blinks. “Do you…like me?”

“No! Yes! You’re a huge klutz but you’re also really handsome and Haebyeol loves you, we talk about you six times a day, and that makes it hard not to trust you with her, okay?” Seungkwan says this huffily, like he’s angry that Mingyu has engendered this much positivity.

“I love Haebyeollie too,” Mingyu says honestly. “And…I think her dad is really handsome too?”

“The eighth and ninth wonders!” Seungkwan says shrilly.

Mingyu blushes.

“So,” Seungkwan says, and then pauses to take a deep breath. “The reason I asked to meet was so I could ask you out. On a date.”

“I do,” Mingyu says, and then quickly shakes his head. It wasn’t a marriage proposal! “I mean, I’d really like that, but I think we should wait until Haebyeol goes to first grade. It wouldn’t be right if…”

All the tension seems to leave Seungkwan’s shoulders in a flash. He sighs. “This is why I even considered you, you know. You really do put Byeollie first.”

“I’m honored.” Mingyu grins. “Thank you for considering me.”

“Don’t be smart.”

“Sorry.”

“I guess we’ll put a raincheck on the date for February?”

Mingyu nods, not sure that this is really happening to him. A date? With Boo-ssi? Seungkwan? Who liked him? This was surely an alternate universe where he didn’t trip over his own feet and accidentally drop everything he ever held.

“I’d better go then. Or I won’t see her before I have to go back to work.”

Mingyu clears his throat. “Right. Okay.”

“There’s just one more thing…” Seungkwan spins on his heel and looks straight at Mingyu before marching right up to him. They’re face to face and mere centimetres apart.

Mingyu leans down, compelled by the allure of high cheekbones and shiny lips, and Seungkwan leans up, and their mouths meet in the middle in the briefest of touches. They pull back and Mingyu lifts a hand to hold Seungkwan’s jaw, as razor sharp as he’d always expected it to be, and they kiss again, a more heated exchange this time.

“Something to remember me by,” Seungkwan says against Mingyu’s lips. “I’m going to be coming to pick Haebyeol up every day so don’t you dare think about anyone else in the meantime.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to wait until February,” Mingyu says breathlessly.

Seungkwan gets a smug look on his face. “Patience, Kim Mingyu. It’s something most people learn in kindergarten.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
